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‘Anna and the Apocalypse’: Think ‘High School Musical’ with zombies

David LewisDecember 4, 2018Updated: December 6, 2018, 1:45 pm

Ella Hunt and Malcolm Cumming in “Anna and the Apocalypse.” Photo: Associated Press

“Anna and the Apocalypse,” which has the trappings of a cult movie, is the latest addition to the ever-growing body of zombie comedy films, yet there are a few irreverently fun wrinkles: catchy musical numbers, a dose of high school angst and even a Christmas motif to boot. It doesn’t consistently soar, but by and large, it’s an entertaining concoction of “Fast Times at Ridgemont High,” “High School Musical” and, especially, “Shaun of the Dead.”

Anna (Ella Hunt, appealing) lives in the dead-end Scottish town of Little Haven, and the last thing on her mind is an impending zombie invasion. She is too busy arguing with her father about taking a year off after high school, and dealing with a teenage love triangle that involves her virginal best friend, John (Malcolm Cumming), and a sexually confident jock, Nick (Ben Wiggins).

Ella Hunt and Malcolm Cumming in “Anna and the Apocalypse.” Photo: Associated Press

But not long after a few cute songs in the school hallways and cafeteria, life in Little Haven takes a turn for the undead, when zombies mysteriously show up and start munching on everyone in town. At first, Anna is blissfully unaware of the carnage, and in a fun homage to “Shaun of the Dead,” she traipses obliviously through her neighborhood among the corpses littering the streets.

Soon enough, though, Anna snaps out of her denial, and she adopts a sharp-edged candy cane decoration as her weapon of choice against the hungry hordes of zombies. Rival suitors John and Nick are along for the ride, as are schoolmates Chris (Christopher Leveaux) and Steph (Sarah Swire), a rebellious type whom any zombie would be wise not to underestimate.

Director John McPhail is clearly having fun mashing up genres, with varying levels of success. The Christmas background affords opportunities for clever comic touches, and McPhail keeps things moving briskly during the cutely choreographed musical numbers, which give the film much of its life. We keep waiting for the zombies to break into a song of their own, but these creatures don’t seem to be in on the joke.

As one might expect from a zombie comedy, there are some amusingly macabre moments, particularly when the kids face dangers at a bowling alley, though the comic and musical set pieces tend to peter out when Anna and her cohorts finally reach their high school for a less-than-stellar showdown.

“Apocalypse” also doesn’t excel in the teen angst department, because the characters are not fleshed out enough. The love triangle is not convincing, and except for Anna and her father, we don’t care a whole lot about what happens to the characters, perhaps because we didn’t get enough time to know them in the beginning.

Yet even if all these disparate genre elements don’t always come together, the film exudes a zaniness and breeziness that make it easy to watch. In the end, Anna wants to live her life, and she isn’t going to let an inconvenient kerfuffle like a zombie invasion stop her.